Wireless communication systems, including wireless mobile systems, are widely deployed to provide various telecommunication services. Telecommunication services include voice services, data services, voice and data connectivity, Internet connectivity, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), wireless point-to-point, video, streaming video, videotelephony, messaging, and broadcasting to name a few.
Typical wireless communication systems employ multiple-access technologies. Examples of such multiple-access technologies include code division multiple-access (CDMA), time division multiple-access (TDMA), frequency division multiple-access (FDMA), orthogonal frequency division multiple-access (OFDMA), single-carrier frequency division multiple-access (SC-FDMA), and time division synchronous code division multiple-access (TD-SCDMA).
Multiple-access technologies have been adopted in various telecommunication standards to provide common protocols that enable wireless and mobile devices to communicate on a municipal, national, regional, and global level. Wireless services are offered by many providers using various standards on cellular local area networks (cellular LANs) and wireless local area networks (WLANs). Standards applicable to cellular LANs include those promulgated by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), such as 3G, 4G, Long Term Evolution (LTE), and LTE-Advanced (LTE-A). LTE-A provides a set of enhancements to the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) mobile standard promulgated by the 3GPP. A next evolution of the 3GPP standards is being considered; it may be referred to as 5G. Standards applicable to WLANs include those promulgated by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), such as IEEE 802.11 (commonly and/or variously referred to as Wi-Fi® and/or Hotspot 2.0). IEEE 802.11 is a set of media access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) specifications for implementing WLAN communication.
Communication systems using multiple-access technologies simultaneously support communication for multiple user devices. In general, a user device serves as an interface to a network. A user device can take on any number of forms. It may be a mobile hand-held device such as a cellular phone, a laptop, or notepad computer, a wrist-worn device, or a device configured to be worn in any way by a user. It may alternatively be a fixed device, such as a computer/cellular phone interface used in a building alarm system, or a machine-to-machine (M2M) type device that may facilitate communication between, for example, a television, refrigerator, bathroom scale, and/or washing machine. It need not receive input through a human-machine interface (e.g., a physical or image based keyboard or a voice command interface).
In the context of 3GPP, a user device is generally referred to as a user equipment (UE). In the context of IEEE 802.11, a user device is generally referred to as a station (STA). However, many user devices can communicate using both a cellular LAN and a WLAN (e.g., many cellular phones communicate over both a 3GPP network and an IEEE 802.11 network). Accordingly, the same user device may be both a UE and a STA. Furthermore, in standards other than 3GPP and IEEE 802.11, or in accordance with non-standard based protocols or practices, a user device may be referred to by other names including, for example, a terminal, client device
Access Network Query Protocol (ANQP) is a protocol defined by the IEEE and the Wi-Fi Alliance®. The Wi-Fi Alliance is a global non-profit industry association that certifies Wi-Fi® products for interoperability and industry-standard security protections. ANQP is presently defined for IEEE 802.11. ANQP provides a protocol that allows a STA to query a WLAN access point (AP) (e.g., an AP under 802.11, Wi-Fi, or Hotspot 2.0) without requiring a security association with the AP. A STA can use ANQP to perform network discovery and selection at an AP. In addition, the STA can discover information, at the AP level, about AP features/characteristics (e.g., load) and supported services (e.g., including supported service providers, connectivity type, etc.). An example of an AP may be a wireless modem or wireless router at a home, store, office, or in a vehicle. APs may be indoor or outdoor. Outdoor APs may appear in cities, suburbs, and/or college, corporate, or government campuses to provide, for example, Internet access to a community.
An AP may traditionally be thought of a radio device that connects to a network (typically the Internet) via an Internet Service Provider (ISP). Consequently, connectivity to a network via an AP, for a given STA, is traditionally determined by one ISP.
As implemented today under IEEE 802.11u, the concept of a 3GPP-style radio access network (RAN) provider that is separate from a 3GPP-style connectivity access network provider does not exist. As implemented today, an IEEE 802.11 AP fulfills the general functions of both the RAN and connectivity access network providers. In other words, using the terminology of 3GPP in the context of IEEE 802.11, the RAN provider and the connectivity access network provider are always the same entity. This is in contrast to 3GPP systems, where the RAN provider and the connectivity access network provider may be different entities.
ANQP, being defined for IEEE 802.11, does not contemplate, and is unable to support, a plurality of connectivity access network providers at a single AP. Therefore, a STA can determine what services are supported by a given AP, but only under the assumption that the AP is associated with a single entity that functions as a combination of the 3GPP-style RAN and connectivity access network providers. This is problematic, at least because each AP can provide connectivity to only a limited number of service providers.
RAN sharing (i.e., the sharing of a single RAN by a plurality of connectivity access network providers) is not defined for IEEE 802.11. It would be beneficial to allow an AP to be shared by a plurality of connectivity access network providers. This would allow for an increase in the number of service providers (and their associated services) available to a STA at the AP. In such a scenario, a given AP may offer a STA a greater number of choices of service providers. However, a greater number of choices in service providers at a given AP presents problems of its own. ANQP does not scale well; it is cumbersome and not flexible for queries involving a large number of service providers.
Current idle mode selection behavior is for an AP to perform public land mobile network (PLMN) selection, and then perform cell selection with the selected PLMN. PLMNs are identified using a PLMN identifier (PLMN ID). Presently, the PLMN ID has two components. The first component is the Mobile Country Code (MCC). The MCC is 3 digits. It uniquely identifies a country. The second component is the Mobile Network Code (MNC). The MNC is a 2 or 3 digit number (depending on the value of the MCC). The MNC identifies the operator within the country. At best, using a 3 digit MNC, only 1000 operators can be defined for a given country. The number of operators in many countries has already, or soon will, exceed 1000. Accordingly, it is not feasible to provide all operators (e.g., operators of WLANs under IEEE 802.11, operators of cellular LANs under 3GPP, etc.) with PLMNs.
Furthermore, APs under IEEE 802.11, are known to periodically broadcast over-the-air messages, to advertise that a certain limited number of service providers are available at the AP, and to provide the identities of the certain limited number of service providers being advertised. Such broadcasts may be made, for example, by a beacon such as a system information block-type 1 (SIB1) transmission. However, only six PLMN IDs can be included in a current SIB1 transmission. Even if a new identifier was introduced to enable a larger access network identifier space, it would still not enable a network access node (e.g., access point or eNodeB) to support a large number of associated service providers.
Furthermore, if an AP is shared by more than a fixed maximum number of service providers that can be advertised in a broadcast, the advertisement cannot inform client devices of an opportunity to select from among the unadvertised service providers that share the AP with the advertised service providers. Such unadvertised service providers are therefore unintentionally hidden from client devices.
Additionally, certain service providers do not want their networks to be advertised to the public in a beacon transmission. An example of such network might be a closed subscriber group (CSG). Access to a CSG is available to subscribers of the CSG, but not to the general public. These service providers are therefore intentionally hidden from client devices.
Nevertheless, there is a growing need to support an ever growing number of services and/or service providers at each type of network access node (e.g., AP access nodes under IEEE 802.11 and eNB access nodes under 3GPP). Consequently, the inability of ANQP to scale to support a large number of services and/or service providers at a given network access node is problematic.
Accordingly, problems exist as to how to allow a client device to obtain a selective list of connectivity access network providers, services, and/or service providers from a network access node and/or how to select which of a plurality of connectivity access network providers, services, and/or service providers should appear on a default list of connectivity access network providers, services, and/or service providers to be advertised to client devices from a network access node.